§ Mr. ByersTo ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what steps his Department is taking to achieve investor in people status; when it started the process; when it expects to achieve investor in people status; and if he will make a statement. [2979]
§ Mr. Jonathan EvansThe constituent parts of my Department are approaching the investor in people initiative separately.
The Court Service, established as an agency in April this year, is committed in principle to achieving the investor in people standard within the lifetime of the current corporate plan, that is by April 1998. A scoping study, begun earlier this year, will shortly recommend to 822W the chief executive when the process should begin and what the time scale should be for the action plan and assessment phase. The chief executive will make a public announcement once these decisions have been taken.
The Public Trust Office began to work towards investor in people in April this year and has completed the diagnostic stage to determine the readiness of the office for assessment against the standard; surveys and interviews of staff have been carried out and the findings were recently presented to the management board. A decision has been taken to pursue a commitment to achieve accreditation for the PTO by April 1997 and the action plan is being drawn up.
The headquarters of my Department began active consideration of the investor in people initiative in the summer and is currently examining the options for completing the diagnostic stage of the process, with a provisional target date of April next year. Decisions on a target date for committing to IIP and on timing of an action plan will follow thereafter.